Time
by fleeterberry
Summary: Just what does Stanton want with Reese and how far is she willing to go to get it? Set immediately after Prisoner's Dilemma. Two parts total, rated for language, Carter/Reese
1. Chapter 1

Time  
Fleeterberry  
Spoilers: Through Prisoner's Dilemma  
Disclaimer: Not mine.

AN: Once Dead Reckoning airs, this will be AU. It's already kind of AU, but it seemed like fun.

Part One

He was finally able to return her smirk and he relished having some power back. The last mission he'd be sent on was a total bust. "There's nothing more I can do." He shrugged, casually sitting down in his chair as though he wasn't still wearing a bomb vest. "Kill me or let me go."

Stanton's cold eyes narrowed. "You can get me Reese."

Snow laughed outright. "Last time I saw him, I tried to have him killed. You're on your own."

Her lips pursed, undoubtedly recalling that she too had tried to kill him the last time she'd seen him. Never one to give up, she leaned her head to the side and grinned. "Then you can get me leverage." Her voice softened to a sing-song tone as her hand slid along his shoulder. "If you get me Reese, I'll let you go."

Already resigned to dying right where he was, Snow shook his head. "There's only one person who can help you, and it's not me."

Stanton rolled her eyes. "The girlfriend?"

Snow nodded. It made no difference to him whether she succeeded or not, but some resilient instinct to survive told him that helping her was the best chance he had, no matter how small it was.

The gun's barrel pressed into his chin took him by surprise. Stanton shook her head, her eyes somehow growing even colder. "Jessica is dead. Long dead. You know that already. I'm starting to lose my patience."

Snow smirked again, even with the gun still threatening to end his life at any moment. "Not the dead one, he's got a new girl."

Stanton's eyes lit up and she smiled. "Do tell, I love gossip."

"Mind taking that gun off me first?"

With a sigh, Stanton slipped the piece back into her waistband and nodded at the timer on the vest, always counting down. "You've got ten minutes to give me something good or I'm not going to fix that."

What the hell? He hated Reese. Might as well get him killed too.

He met her eyes. "NYPD Detective. Name of Carter, works out of the 8th. If anyone can get you Reese, it's her."

"A cop?" Stanton's eyes narrowed as she weighed her options. Finally, she fixed him with a grin. "Let's go see this girlfriend of his. Then I'll decide if I believe you."

#####

It took a week before she was convinced. In fact, even sitting in the car with an unhappy Snow beside her as she watched this Carter marching out of Merton Watts with a horde of FBI agents and a handcuffed Reese, she was still ready to kill him. She had the gun right there too, when she saw it. The unadulterated worry on Carter's face. The judgment lapse on both their parts as their eyes met and held.

"God damn, you weren't lying." She lowered the binoculars for a moment to look at her passenger. "I guess I should keep up my end of the bargain."

With her gun steady on him, Stanton keyed in the code to deactivate the vest. Snow shoved it off as quickly as he could lest she change her mind and jumped out of the car while he buttoned his shirt.

"Oh, Mark, one more thing." She pulled the trigger before he had time to turn, the bullet throwing him into the wall. "Fuck you." She didn't look back as he slumped to the ground.

#####

Stanton had hooked up the vest while Carter was still out cold, knowing that an ex-Army trained cop would put up a fight. But as she was completing the task, finishing the timer that would keep the woman under control, Carter's brown eyes opened and searched the face of her captor.

It took her a moment with her concussion-scrambled brain to come up with the name that went with the face. "Stanton?"

She smiled her twisted smile. "I'm so flattered. John must have mentioned me."

Carter felt her natural competitive streak rising up. "John's never mentioned you. Snow said John killed you."

Stanton laughed. "John never was very good at taking orders."

Carter snarled in response, the adrenaline rush of waking up in an unfamiliar place waning enough for a massive headache to take over all her thoughts. She looked down to shield her eyes from the light and finally realized what she was wearing. Her wide eyes darted back up to meet Stanton's.

Still smiling, Stanton stepped back from the timer. "I wouldn't worry, hon, John's always had a soft spot for humans."

#####

Everything hurt. Every single part of his body. Between the beating he'd taken in the yard at Riker's and quite possibly the worst car crash he'd ever been in - and he'd been in plenty - he was relatively sure something was broken. And judging from how much it hurt to breathe, the broken part was probably an extremely important part.

He struggled to remember what had happened. Though he remembered the crash, he couldn't remember much else. Beyond the physical discomfort, there was more. A mental distress. An unidentified source of anxiety that made him nauseous. He couldn't place it and sincerely wished for the earpiece he'd come to rely on, Finch's trusted voice bringing him up to speed.

"Oh, goody, you're awake. Now we can get down to business."

The sound of her voice was perhaps the most unwelcome sound he'd ever heard. But still not the cause for the unpleasant twist in his gut.

He scowled, remembering that she was to blame for the crash and thus a good portion of the pain he was in, not to mention that she'd also shot him the last time they'd been face to face. "No, Kara, to answer your question, I didn't miss you a damn bit."

She made a clicking sound with her tongue. "Careful there, you'll make a girl cry." Turning a chair to face him, she sat down and crossed her legs. "See, John, I've learned a lot since we got fired."

"We didn't get fired. They tried to kill us. I quit."

"Actually, I tried to kill you. Failed obviously, but they did fire us. That's what it means when they try to kill you." Her lips pinched into a thin line, anger forcing its way through her fake smile. "We were a great team, John. We never failed a mission and despite our loyalty, our dear friend Mark ordered our deaths. Didn't that bother you?"

Reese shook his head.

"Of course not. You didn't like your job the way I did." She sighed. "I really loved my work. It was so much fun."

Reese grimaced, hating her as much for her lack of a conscience as for her attack on him personally.

"While you decided to take your good fortune and disappear, which by the way you weren't any better at what with all the attention to draw to yourself, I decided to figure out why they turned on us. I decided to see what was on that damn computer that was worth killing two of the CIA's greatest assets."

Reese scoffed at her ego. "Is this getting to a point any time soon?" He punctuated his words with a glance at his watch. It hadn't fared well in the crash; the face was smashed and the hands no longer moving. One more thing to hate her for, as if he didn't have enough reasons already.

"You're as invested in this as I am, John." She stood up and stepped closer, leaning down into his face. "Did you know it wasn't Mark? It wasn't Corwin. It was a god-damned computer that decided to kill us!"

It was only his training that allowed him to hide his feelings. It wasn't quite a surprise, but rather a disturbing confirmation of something he'd wondered. Ever since he'd met Finch and learned about the machine, especially once he'd successfully convinced the machine to help him find Finch, he'd suspected it had been connected to the cluster fuck in Ordos, to the laptop that was worth mass murder and the lives of two operatives.

Stanton had been the one with the computer, she'd been the one who had access to any intelligence the mission provided. And someone with determination like hers would undoubtedly be able to figure it all out eventually.

Now that he knew for certain, he had even more questions, questions he didn't think Finch had the full answers too, questions Reese wasn't sure he really wanted answered. If the computer had been looking for someone to help Finch, maybe it had chosen him as the best option. Maybe it had set them up, betting that he'd managed to survive, knowing that he'd wind up in New York, expecting he'd be in a position for Finch to render assistance.

He hated to think that this whole new life of his, this whole knew purpose for living, everything that he enjoyed anymore, had all been orchestrated, planned, manipulated. Maybe the machine had been able to predict it all, had interceded before he could get leave to see Jessica, had thus been responsible for her death. It felt like he'd been stabbed in the gut.

How could be continue with his work if he was just a pawn?

Would it even be possible to escape from the damn machine?

"Look, I know you're pretending not to care, but if we take down this computer, we'll get our jobs back. Back in the field, on actual missions again, our enormous expense accounts, fancy clothes, free trips around the world! Fuck, John, we can have it all back, especially now that jackass Snow is finally out of the picture." She paused long enough for some of the crazed look in her eyes to die out. "Sounds like heaven, doesn't it?"

"I'm not interested."

Stanton narrowed her eyes. "Who was there for you when Jessica married that little shit?"

Once again, Reese fought to hide his emotions. "Tell you what, Kara, how about you go fuck yourself?"

She laughed, throwing her head back with her amusement. "You're such a tease, John. And so damn predictable." She disappeared around a corner, her voice echoing back at him. "I knew you'd need a little incentive."

When she reappeared, she had a huge smile and the sadistic gleam in her eyes again. But Reese didn't even notice.

His eyes were locked on Carter. On her terrified eyes. On the gag in her mouth. On the dried blood on her face and hands. On the bomb vest she wore. On the timer that was counting down.

And that, he realized, explained the sick feeling he'd had. He remembered being with her just after the crash, the way her body had been pressed alongside his, the way he'd wanted to reach out to her and assure her they were ok.

He didn't try to hide his emotions. It didn't even occur to him that he should try. He was more frightened than he'd been in his life.

Still grinning, Stanton shoved Carter toward the chair she'd been in and then moved to unlock the cuffs on Reese's wrists. "Remember, my dear, anything happens to me, if I don't get back on time, if you piss me off, your little girlfriend goes boom." She chuckled. "Think you'll recover from letting this one down? You barely survived the last one." Walking toward the door, she noticed that Reese hadn't moved to follow her; he was still staring at Carter. "Tick tock, John, I don't think you want us running late, do you?"

His eyes remained on Carter's, trying to silently promise that everything would be fine, trying to apologize for not telling her the truth about his crazy ex-partner when she'd asked. He saw her terror, but beyond that, he saw something that made him even more loathe to leave her - he saw her utter trust.

Their eyes stayed locked together until he reached the doorway. Then he nodded at her once, sealing his promise that he would be back to get her.


	2. Chapter 2

Part Two

As with most plans designed by ex-operatives who were at least slightly, if not completely, insane, Stanton's was lacking in both preparation and effectiveness. Reese could see flaws immediately with each piece she doled out to him, but he dared not mention it, not when she had Carter's life in her crazy, spiteful little hands.

On all of their joint missions, Reese had always been the one to do the planning, the preparation, the stakeout, the "boring" parts as Stanton termed them. Without a boss to demand such work of her, Reese knew valuable information would be lacking. Like a plan. An exit strategy. A fallback. Things that would wind up being extremely important to the success of the mission and likely their lives.

Rather than pointing out the aggravating stupidity, Reese said nothing. He didn't give a shit if the mission failed or if it killed him. Instead, he thought of Carter, the woman who'd already given up everything she had for him, in the unenviable position she was trapped in and Taylor, who didn't even know he was facing the prospect of losing his only living parent, and Finch, who'd be forced to find someone else to work the numbers, someone who wouldn't have any morals left whatsoever. Machine manipulations aside, Reese knew he was one-of-a-kind, somehow having emerged from special forces and CIA training and a career as an assassin and still having a strong sense of right and wrong.

He wasn't doing this for himself. He was doing this for them. For the friends he didn't want to lose.

Reese remained a docile passenger while Stanton navigated the city streets. She pulled to a stop outside a drab gray skyscraper, carefully putting her ponytail loose and arranging her hair in front of her face. Turning to him with a smirk, she shrugged. "Sorry, I forgot to bring you a hat. You'll have to be careful, I guess."

Normally, Reese might have been concerned about being seen and adding to the list of reasons why the government wanted him dead. Except under the current circumstances, knowing Stanton had no intention whatsoever of letting him live, he figured camera time might help Finch intercede in whatever was going on. She wanted access to the machine and believed someone who had it was in this building. He wasn't too worried; he knew the machine could look out for itself.

Stanton pulled into the parking garage, leaving the car by the fire stairs, pointed toward the exit. She was preparing to leave in a hurry and Reese fully expected he'd be left behind.

Instead of getting out of the car, she leaned over to open the glove compartment and withdrew a pack of hand wipes. She sighed and shook her head. "I guess this is as much my fault since I was the one who crashed into the truck, but you really should have worn your seat belt." With all the tenderness of a Munchausen by proxy mom, she wiped at his face, removing some of the more obvious damage. She pulled a compact out of her bag next, dabbing on some makeup to cover the bruises. "That'll have to do. Tuck your shirt in."

He glared at her while he climbed out of the car and complied, knowing that tucking his shirt in would hardly make him blend in with the business types who would be in the building. He was a mess, wrinkled, unshaven, bruised, and battered. He was probably the worst choice to help her with this mission based simply on the amount of attention his appearance would garner. He knew, as ill-planned as it seemed, Stanton had some idea what she was doing. He was there for a reason. He was supposed to get attention. To keep it off her, he suspected.

She flashed a badge at the guard and dragged him along with the crowd heading into work for the day. The elevator was crowded at first, the group petering out as they climbed to the forty-third floor. When they were finally alone, she dropped the other shoe.

"This is a SCIF. All you need to do is create a diversion. Be the confused temp who's on the wrong floor or the boss no one knew was coming or a fucking vagrant begging for change. You get the trigger happy receptionist out of the way and I'll meet you back at the car."

His eyes were on the camera, the one she had carefully avoided. "You're setting me up."

She laughed. "Of course I am, John. But you'd do the same if you were in my shoes, wouldn't you? Snow was the only person who knew I was still alive and he's dead. So, you'll take the fall for this and I'll get the information I need, and it'll be just like always." She led him out of the elevator and across the hall.

"You'll be lucky if you walk out of here alive. You'll never get whatever you're looking for."

She pulled him into the stair well and pointed toward the next floor. "You're on. I'll meet you up there in five." With a wink, she headed for the elevator. "Don't let me down, sweetheart, or Carter goes boom."

With the knowledge that the best outcome he could conceivably expect was to be shot on sight, Reese sighed and headed up to the SCIF. At least he wouldn't be alive to know Carter was dead.

#####

He had no idea what he was going to do. He hadn't been able to talk his way into a SCIF when he'd actually wanted to. And after the last few days, his brain was on overload. He knew nothing was going to work and rather than jumping on one idea and going full speed ahead with it like he normally would, the certainty of defeat left him wanting to just turn around and walk away. But Stanton would have a remote on that vest, she'd kill Carter no matter what.

The best he could hope for would be for Stanton to succeed, and maybe decide to keep her word for the first time ever.

He was so distracted that he wound up doing exactly what Stanton had asked of him. He walked right into a woman who had her hands full of coffees and files tucked under her arm, the collision resulting in loose pages and coffee flying everywhere. He faked a smile and mumbled an apology as he helped her pick up the papers, doing his busted ribs no favors, and offering to get her some wet paper towels to clean up the coffee that had spilled all over her shirt.

Clearly not on the right floor herself, the woman was hysterical, crying over her ruined clothes and shrieking about being late for her presentation and drawing the attention of everyone in the vicinity.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Stanton slip through the door.

And then the woman had finally looked at him rather than her shirt and realized all was not right. She was yelling for someone to call security.

The last thing he was in the mood for was a foot chase with a bunch of rent-a-cops, but his options were limited. He could stand there and wait for someone to call the real police or he could run. So he ran. He took the stairs, knowing that security would lose precious time waiting for an elevator to bring them to the forty-fourth floor. And rather than waste his time going down where they'd be expecting him to emerge, he ran up. Only twenty or so stories to the roof, he estimated. Wouldn't normally be a problem.

He was out of breath and barely able to lift his legs by the time he got there, continuing to move only because Carter needed him. And maybe a little because he'd die of embarrassment that he'd been chased down by out of shape security guards. Of course, the options from the roof were limited, considering there was no helicopter, but he could make do. A quick survey told him the best choice was the building to the east, the upper floor still under construction and thus open, provided he could make a horizontal leap of fifteen feet across and not plunge to his death.

He took as deep a breath as he could force, backed up, and gave himself a sprinting start. As soon as his feet left the concrete, he closed his eyes and thought of Carter and of the way he'd someday tell her this story and laugh, hopefully over a cold beer.

And then, there was just white-hot pain as his battered body connected with rebar, stealing his breath, filing his consciousness with excruciating pain as he rolled across it.

He wasn't sure how long he lay there, staring at the sky and wondering if he was dead yet. The sirens told him he wasn't. And he knew no one had called the police over him, the sloppy guy who'd bumped into a hysterical woman in the hallway. The sirens were there for Stanton. Or Finch had arranged a distraction for him.

He forced himself to his feet, wincing with each step because of his freshly twisted ankle, and raced down to the street. Luckily the parking garage with Stanton's car was only a few yards and he was looking forward to being able to sit down. But as he entered the garage, the unmistakable sound of gunshots, first one, then two in rapid succession, then a minute of silence before a fourth.

No silencer, so it wouldn't be Stanton, although it was hardly unlike her to have a backup weapon. He ran toward the car, toward the shots, searching the area for both the shooter and the victim.

And then he saw. Snow, who wasn't as dead as Stanton had thought, standing over her body, his gun still trained on her even as she lay unmoving. He was laughing, proving himself to be as crazy as she was, though that wasn't news to Reese.

"You never were a very good shot, Kara."

"Mark! Don't!" He ran forward, blinded by fear, bulldozing Snow. While Snow was looking for the weapon he'd dropped, Reese crawled back to Stanton's side. The puddle of blood under her was undeniable. There was no point in calling for help; she would be dead long before anyone got there.

He grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him. "What's the code, Kara? The bomb vest, what's the damn code?"

As always, Stanton smiled at him, her eyes as crazed as ever. She kept smiling right through her last words. "Fuck you."

He was shaking as he stared at her empty eyes, the situation dawning on him.

"Don't tell me you're sorry she's dead, John. You hated her as much as I did."

Reese turned back to Snow, realizing his former friend was holding him at gunpoint. And then, he decided, he didn't fucking care anymore. "You son of a bitch! Did you have to kill her right now? She's got Carter strapped in that damn vest!"

Snow's face faltered for a moment. "That's unfortunate. She was a good cop at one point."

Slowly climbing to his feet, knowing he was Carter's only chance, he met Snow's eyes. "Kill me or let me go help her. Just do it now."

Snow snarled until he glanced down at Stanton's body. Then with a smile much like hers had been, he shrugged and holstered his gun. "Next time, John."

Reese paid him no more attention, turning to grab Stanton's keys and phone then speeding back to where they'd left Carter.

#####

She knew the minute she looked at him that something had gone wrong. It didn't take a rocket scientist to know that the woman holding them both hostage was missing, but she didn't even realize that. She just saw the dumbstruck, terrified look on his face and knew.

But she told herself it was just the situation. She was scared. She was in pain. She was ticking. And he was there. Oh thank god, he was there, pulling the gag from her sore mouth.

"John?"

He stepped right up to her, closer than he normally did, bending down to inspect the panel with the flashing lights, the very one she'd been trying to ignore the whole time she'd been waiting there. He took a deep breath and stepped back. "I'm going to call the bomb squad, Carter. I don't want to mess with this."

"Where's Stanton?" In her dealings with the CIA, she knew them to be less honest than run of the mill criminals, but her own humanity wanted to believe that if John had done what was asked of him, Stanton would disconnect the bomb. It would be fair that way.

He didn't need to answer, just shot her a pained look that said everything. She nodded, understanding that Stanton needed to be stopped, no matter the cost. "I didn't do it, Carter."

She looked up, knowing that he was telling the truth. She knew him well enough to know that he'd never gamble with her life like that. "There's not enough time for the bomb squad, John. You can defuse this thing, right?"

He stared at it again, trying not to see the numbers that kept changing, and not for the better. "Probably, but I'm not going to take that chance. I don't want you wearing it while I'm playing with it."

"That's not exactly an option right now, so how about you disconnect it and then we can call the bomb squad?" She was scared, but she trusted him a million times more than she trusted the NYPD. Reaching out, she took his hands. "Please, John? I trust you."

He looked down, muttering something about her being right regarding the time. "Sit tight for a minute." He poked around the room, gathering various tools, faking such a calmness that she almost believed it. When he had everything he needed, he nodded toward a table. "You sit on there. It'll give me the best light."

She moved gingerly, fearing that the damn thing would explode at any moment. The time still read a little under twenty minutes, but she didn't trust it. She didn't want to be hanging around when it said zero.

"Ok, I'll have this off you in a second." He raised a screwdriver to the panel and started to work.

Carter closed her eyes. She couldn't watch. She could see how nervous he was, despite his bravado, and she didn't want to add to it by staring at him. It made her wonder if he was afraid of dying himself or if he was afraid of her dying. She wanted to ask, expecting that the gravity of the situation would encourage an honest answer, but she wasn't sure she wanted to hear it. She suspected she already knew and after everything they'd been through together in the past few days, well, she hardly needed to feel more bonded to the man than she already did.

He worked silently for several minutes, swiping at the sweat on his brow and trying to hide his shaking hands and the way he'd frown involuntarily every few moments. His silence, his lack of smart ass comments, told her the truth.

She covered his hand with hers. "Can I call Taylor?"

He looked up, startled by her breaking the silence. Finally he offered her a crooked smile. "Don't trust me after all?"

Her chin trembled, at his attempt to lighten the mood, at the fact that she was discussing saying goodbye to her baby. "John-"

"I'll tell you when we're there, Carter. We're not there yet, ok?"

She nodded, letting the tears streak down her face. There was no point in hiding it. She was terrified, he was terrified and in just over ten minutes, they might be dead.

She tried to be patient. She tried to be calm. She tried to not look at what he was doing or the timer that remained stubbornly unaffected by his attempts to stop it. But her heart was racing and her ears were ringing in the silence and she was about to lose her mind for wanting an update of some sort.

"John?"

"What? Jesus, I'm trying to work here." He jerked, his whole body shaking with tension. He squeezed his eyes closed and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to snap at you." Then he reached into his pocket for Stanton's phone and offered it to her.

She glanced down, seeing that the timer was down to under five minutes. She took the phone and dialed her son's number. She blinked back tears at his breathless greeting as he whined that he was busy. "I know you're in school, baby, I was just thinking about you and I wanted to say I love you."

Reese looked away, revealing his hurt having to listen to the call by refusing to make eye contact with her. She reached for his hand even as she assured Taylor that nothing was wrong. He squeezed it in response when she said goodbye and hung up.

She forced a nervous smile at him. "You'd better get back to work. We don't have a lot of time here."

"I'm sorry, Carter." He wasn't moving, just standing there, holding her hand and staring at the controls on the vest.

She looked down, seeing the timer hanging from the vest, connected by only two wires. "I think I've seen this movie before. You cut the red one." Except there was no red one. Just two identical black wires running into the vest beyond where either of them could see.

"One of them will diffuse it."

"But you don't know which?"

"Stanton was crazy. She did this on purpose."

Reaching over, Carter grabbed the pliers he'd left on the table beside her. "Go. Get out of here. No sense in both of us dying."

His hand closed around her wrist, keeping her from lifting it. "No, I'm not leaving you."

"John, just go. I wouldn't be here if I didn't have to be."

He moved closer, his other hand moving to her cheek. "You wouldn't leave me either, Jos. Don't even try it." He leaned in then, taking the opportunity that could easily be his last, pressing his mouth squarely against hers. For a moment, it all faded away, all the hurt, all the pain, all the stress, all the worry. It was just him and her and their tongues tangling the way they were meant to from the first time they'd met.

But then reality came crashing back down.

Ninety seconds. And they were just standing there, looking at one another and trying to accept the situation.

She broke eye contact at forty seconds. "Which one are you leaning towards? Because if we don't cut one, we know what'll happen."

He looked at her, looked at the wires, looked at her, and then back at the wires. "This one," he said, his finger shaking as he indicated the top one. "Cut this one."

There wasn't enough time left for her to even weigh the options. And when it came down to it, she trusted him.

So she lifted the pliers with his hand still wrapped around her wrist and pinched them around the top wire.

It took her a moment to pry one eye open, looking around slowly as if a sudden movement might change the outcome. But no, she wasn't in heaven, sitting on a puffy cloud and having a chat with her grandmother. She was still sitting on the table, her sweaty hands gripping the pliers, John's hand wrapped so tightly around her wrist it was almost painful.

And the blasted flashing timer had gone blank.

She took a breath, wondering if she was imagining it.

John's hands moved suddenly, his actions frantic and uncoordinated as he pulled the straps of the vest from around her and lifted it off her. "Let's get the hell out of here." He didn't wait for a response from her, just grabbed her hand and tugged, leading her down the dark tunnel and back to the street.

He still had a hold of her when he lifted the phone, dialing Finch's number, but he stopped before he placed the call, putting the phone back in his pocket. "That can wait a minute."

For once in all the time she'd known him, she knew exactly what he was thinking. She raised her arms, sliding them over his shoulders as his hands gripped her waist and pulled her closer. A hug was exactly what she needed, exactly what she'd been hoping for the evening before, until Donnelly had shown up. Donnelly. Shit. That was a whole other can of worms they'd have to deal with.

But for the moment, wrapped tightly in John's arms, she knew it would be ok. They would be ok. They had all the time in the world.


End file.
